They passed the section doors and rolled into green. He didn’t know Corinthian’s exact berth, but he had it pegged from the visual display as somewhere a third of the way into green out of blue.
He wasn’t ready for Marie’s hop off the transport as it slowed for a flag-down. He jumped, and tagged her quick pace along the frontage of bars and sleepovers, overtook her as she stopped and waited for him.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Marie, what are you doing? Tell me when you’re getting off!”
“The berth’s right down there,” Marie said, gazing down-ring, deeper into green. “They’re showing as offloading.”
He could see the orange light, but only a single transport was sitting, loaded, at the berth. “Not moving.”
“Taking their own time, for certain. I want a look at the warehouse and the company where that’s going. The transport logo says Miller.”
It sounded better than shooting at Corinthian crew. “What are we looking for, specifically?”
“What we can find. What they’re dealing in. “ She grabbed his sleeve and drew him back against the frontage of a trinket shop as a man walked past them. He was confused for a moment, looking for obvious threat on the man, but Marie didn’t let up.
“That’s a Corinthian patch. Corinthian officer.”
Sleeve-patch on the light green coveralls showed a black circle, an object he understood was some kind of ancient helmet. Crossed missiles. Spears. He’d learned that word from Marie. The patch had never looked half as much merchanter as military.
But, then, that described Corinthian to a tee.
And that might even be a cousin, striding along as if he owned the dock. Or a cousin’s shipmate, he amended the thought, considering that the slurs about hire-ons and sex as a pre-req for employment that he’d heard all his life from his cousins were probably entirely true. He found himself nervous, unaccountably afraid, even in this degree of proximity to the ship and a side of his life he didn’t want to meet.
“Come on,” Marie said, and tugged at his arm, urging him closer to that berth.
“No!” He disengaged, grabbed her arm and drew her back. “You said you’d settle with them in the market. You said you were looking for. something in the data.”
“Scared?”
“You can’t go down there, I won’t let you go down there.”
“Won’t let me?”
“I won’t. If they spot a Sprite patch, they’re going to be all over us. It’s crazy, Marie! If you can fix him through the market, do it, I’m with you, I’ll help you, but I’m not going to see you go down there and do something stupid!”
“I’m fine. What’s to worry about? Afraid to say hello to your father? I’m sure he’d be interested.”
The cousins who gave him trouble had nothing on Marie. “I doubt he knows I exist. Unless you know a reason for him to.”
“Interesting question.”
“Marie,—for God’s sake—”
“It’s not a problem, Tom, I don’t know why you’re making it a problem. We just go a little closer, have a look around…”
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Marie, what do you care now? After twenty years, for God’s sake, what could you possibly care about that man? I don’t. I don’t give a damn where he is, what he does, I don’t want to meet him, I don’t want to know anything about him.”
“Are you afraid?”
“No, I’m not afraid, but—”
“Liar yourself.”
“Do you want him to rule your life, Marie? Is what happened twenty years ago going to govern your whole damned career?”
Marie’s hand was in motion, and he’d gotten faster over the years. He blocked it. It stung, even so.
“Don’t you lecture me!” Marie hissed. “Don’t you lecture me, Thomas!”
“‘Bygones be bygones.’ Hell!”
He wasn’t looking for the second try. He didn’t intend the force of the hand that blocked it.
“Cut it out, Marie!”
“Don’t you lift a hand to me, don’t you ever lift a hand, you hear me? Damn you!”
“I said cut it out!” He intercepted the third try, realized he was holding too tight and let go. “I’m not him, dammit, Marie, I’m not him, God, stop—stop it, Marie!”
She got a breath. She was absolutely paper white, staring at him with white-edged eyes, mouth open—he was shaking. She could still do that to him, he didn’t know why, except that she could make him mad and that when he was mad he didn’t think. He could hit her in his temper and maybe hurt her, maybe want to hurt her, that was the fear that paralyzed him.
She got her breath. She stared at him. “Whose side are you on?”
“I didn’t know there was a side!”
“You damned well believe there’s a side! Don’t you talk to Mischa behind my back! I didn’t have to have you. I didn’t have to keep you. And what’s fair—what’s fair, Tom, your talking to Mischa, when Mischa never did one damned thing to help me, my own ship never did a damned thing to help me—like it was all my fault—”
“I know what you feel, Marie, I don’t blame you, but you don’t know—”
“You don’t know what I feel! You don’t know any part of what I feel. Don’t give me that!”
“I don’t want this ship to leave you in some station psych unit!”
“I’m not stupid, boy! Does Mischa think I’m stupid?”
“Mischa doesn’t have a damned thing to do with my being here, I’m here for you, Marie, for God’s sake, don’t act like this! Listen to me!”
“Get away from me!” She shoved him off, ran along the frontages, and he ran after her, caught her, but she started hitting him.
“Marie,—”
“Hey!” somebody said, a voice he didn’t know. Someone grabbed him hard from behind and shoved him, Marie broke and ran, and he was staring at an angry spacer a head taller and a good deal wider, yelling, “What’s your problem?”
“That’s my mother, dammit!”
The man grabbed him by the collar. “You treat your mama like that?”
“She’s in trouble! Let me go!”
“What trouble?”
“Let go!” He broke the hold and ducked, ran toward Corinthian’s berth, and stopped, having lost all sight of Marie. Someone came running behind him, and he swung around, held up both hands in token of peace, ducked the man’s attempt to grab him again.
“I’m telling you that’s my mother, it’s crew business, I’m not after a fight—just leave me the hell alone, she’s breaking regs, I got to find her!”
He shoved the man off, ran down the dock closer to Corinthian, hoping he’d find some hidey-hole Marie might have found—there were bars and he skidded into one, hoping for a service door—saw one, but it was behind the bar. He kited back along the wall as the damnfool spacer came in looking for him. He slipped out the door behind the man’s back, then ran down the row to the second bar over, and into the far dim back of the room, in case the man should give it another try. He was out of breath, hoped the man hadn’t called the cops. He saw a public phone and went to it—it was too far around the station rim to rely on the pocket-com. He punched in the universal number for ship-lines, Sprite’s berth at orange 19, then the internal number for bridge-corn.
“This is Tom Hawkins. Put me through to the captain, this is an extreme emergency.”